Independent mind working on mobile growth. Not Ex-GAFAM. I don't take prisoners, but reply to friends & trolls alike.
🌴
Joined November 2009
- Tweets38.6K
- Following4.3K
- Followers18.3K
- Likes48.4K
Thomasbcn retweeted
How to make $30K/month in the app business:
Build an app.
Spend $8,000 on Apple Search Ads.
Generate $8,000 in revenue.
Call yourself an 8-figure app founder (if you count the cents).
Post screenshots of your revenue, never your profit.
Start a paid community teaching people how to build successful apps.
Charge $99/month.
Get 300 members.
Make $29,700/month teaching people how to make money from apps.
Congratulations. Your most profitable app is a Discord server.
Thomasbcn retweeted
180+ replies sent ✅
Sorry for the delay; I had a hospital emergency yesterday and the whole day slipped away.
It started with a spontaneous idea after seeing Thomas tweet, and it turned into much more work than I anticipated.
I hope you find it useful; for me, it already found holes and space for improvement. For example, I was counting misleading metrics, so my data looked better than I thought.
If I somehow missed your reply, here is the direct link:
github.com/filippkowalski/ap…
I turned @Thomasbcn 10 years and 8 figures of Apple Search Ads spend into one AI skill.
All of his learnings in one place:
→ every article he's written
→ his YouTube breakdowns
→ private insights he shared with me in DMs
My agents scraped it all and packed it into a single ASA skill your AI can use. Thomas helped me refine it and gave me the OK to share it.
Want it?
1. Like this post
2. Comment "ASA"
I'll DM you the link.
(Follow Thomas + RT if you want bonus karma 🙏)
*Sorry for the engagement bait, but I think this is useful, and useful content without the bait doesn't seem to go far nowadays:)
Thomasbcn retweeted
Here's where you should live in Europe, based on how much you make.
And based on how you value 'happiness levels' and quality of tax-paid services.
Based on @EuroTopTech Community Data of tech workers in Europe.
For happiness:
- Serbia below 100k
- Spain when earning above 100k
For tax-paid services:
- Poland below 80k
- Switzerland after 100k
For a mix of both:
- Poland below 100k
- Switzerland or Spain above 100k
Interesting!
Thomasbcn retweeted
I turned @Thomasbcn 10 years and 8 figures of Apple Search Ads spend into one AI skill.
All of his learnings in one place:
→ every article he's written
→ his YouTube breakdowns
→ private insights he shared with me in DMs
My agents scraped it all and packed it into a single ASA skill your AI can use. Thomas helped me refine it and gave me the OK to share it.
Want it?
1. Like this post
2. Comment "ASA"
I'll DM you the link.
(Follow Thomas + RT if you want bonus karma 🙏)
*Sorry for the engagement bait, but I think this is useful, and useful content without the bait doesn't seem to go far nowadays:)
I'm seeing a lot of indies starting from scratch on Apple Ads, some even following recommendations from the sales team (big high, try all placements, go AI with max conversions...)
Once you burn your $100 credit I spent a decade publishing #ASA content, for free:
Thomasbcn retweeted
In 9 months, OpenAI ads went from $60 CPM, $200k minimums, no tracking and basic targeting to "You tell us the outcomes you care about and the budget or target costs that works for your business, and our system adjusts bids and ad delivery to work towards these goals".
Thomasbcn retweeted
still waiting to see a someone doing better ugc than Symmetry.
this are the stats from just last 3 months:
- 100.000+ videos uploaded
- nearly a billion views.
volume negates luck
Thomasbcn retweeted
Just realized that Meta's ads business has almost caught up to Google search.
Meta's ads biz is growing 26% y/y v 12% for Google search
Thomasbcn retweeted
In case you want to disconnect a little bit from social media and still be up-to-date with all the latest news in b2c/mobile/consumer apps
themobiletakeaway.com
ss from our mobile founders slack group
Thomasbcn retweeted
OKAY OKAY OKAY, we'll host an 🚨 EMERGENCY LIVE WEBINAR:
Apparently, there's a lot of confusion around Apple's new Retention Messages
They're available to everyone in App Store Connect now, but what is in ASC is not the same thing that's available via the Retention Messaging API
So what's missing?
Should (and can) you still request access to the API?
How do you set up your basic Retention Messages today?
What did we learn from the world's biggest data set on the Retention Messages beta??! (not an exaggeration)
Next Tuesday, we'll host a live webinar with
@plahteenlahti, on of your favourite @RevenueCat developer advocates, and
Luigi, the latest member of RevenueCat's Customer Growth Advisory team (specialized in lifecycle messaging and CRM), who has worked closely with some of our biggest customers on Retention Messaging
Together, they'll:
Explain how to get started with Retention Messages in App Store Connect
Share how and where the API is still useful (and how to request access)
Dig into MOUNTAINS of data from the beta
Share some of the best, most successful Retention Messaging tactics we've encountered, and
Answer all your questions
See you there!
Thomasbcn retweeted
Can someone please explain why $10B Pinterest has 5,000+ employees?
AppLovin is $120B with 800 employees, half of which don't even work on the main ad business.
What the hell is going on over at Pinterest? Is it a charity? What are these people doing all day?
Literally, what could 5,000 employees actually be doing all day over there?
$APP $PINs
Thomasbcn retweeted
You can’t configure Retention Messaging for users cancelling their free trial because they haven’t been paying subscribers yet
The minimum eligibility requirement is 1 month of paid subscription
So if you’re planning to offer a discount to users cancelling their trial, unfortunately, that won’t work
Thomasbcn retweeted
Balderton Capital got a ~2,050× multiple on its £1.5M seed investment in Revolut. Today that stake is worth around $6.15B 🤯
The numbers (roughly from Crunchbase & Bloomberg data):
Balderton first invested £1.5M in Revolut’s 2015 seed round at an £8M valuation, which gave the firm 14.56% of the company. Seedcamp also invested at this stage.
In 2016, Index Ventures led a £4.8M follow-on seed round. The dilution from this round reduced Balderton’s stake to ~9.1%.
Shortly after, Balderton led the Series A. Following that round, their position adjusted to ~10.9%.
As Revolut scaled, several significant fundraising rounds followed:
- $250M at a $1.95B valuation
- $580M at $6.08B
- $800M at $33.8B
After these rounds, Balderton’s stake moved to 9.29% → 8.40% → 8.20%.
At the $33.8B valuation, their stake was worth approximately $2.77B.
In 2024 and 2025, secondary transactions priced Revolut at $45B and then $75B.
At the $75B valuation, Balderton’s ~8.2% stake is estimated at $6.15B.
Across their early checks (roughly £3M in total), this results in an approximate 2,050× return on capital.
For context:
An individual who invested £1,000 on the same terms would see that grow to roughly £2,050,000.
This single position generated more than 20× the size of Balderton’s £300M fund 🤯
This is probably the best single VC investment in Europe's history
The full story and what founders can copy: Revolut Playbook: From a Travel Card to $2B in Revenue
productmarketfit.tech/p/revo…
Thomasbcn retweeted
OpenAI’s speedrun of reproducing the Meta ads platform continues apace with its most consequential (and predictable) development: Target Cost per Action (specifying a bid for a specific conversion outcome):
Thomasbcn retweeted
AppLovin is now worth roughly as much as Snap, Pinterest, Reddit, The Trade Desk, Magnite, the Lakers, the Cowboys, and the Yankees. Combined.
TLDR: You are not bullish enough on building products exclusively for economically rational advertisers.
